“And He Could Wear a Dress?”: A Preschool Transformative Book Conversation

Abstract

How might literature be shared with students for transformative purposes? Literature has the power to shape students’ worldviews through the exploration of diverse human experiences, but how students engage with diverse characters is important to reaching transformative goals. The author identified teachers’ pedagogical moves within a preschool conversation on gender around the picture book My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis. Noticing how gender normativity manifested in the classroom, teachers used the book to open the conversation on gender, honor students’ sensemaking, and complicate gender norms through responsive listening. Using examples of teacher–student interactions across the preschool book conversation, practical suggestions are provided for teachers to facilitate transformative dialogue when sharing diverse texts with young students.

Baseball, Presidents, and State Test Passages: Considering Gendered Knowledge in Literacy Research, Curricula, and Assessments

“…May-June 2024 literacyworldwide.org Tschida et al, 2014). There are also no opportunities for students to engage in dialogue about the gendered nature of history, or about gender non-normativity (Quast, 2018) or make sense of the gendered knowledge, histories, and structures of the past. Therefore, it is important for the curricula to include counter-narratives about how minoritized individuals were treated by male Presidents.…”

“…Another concern is the narrow, single‐story perspective that is presented in the unit, which positions the Presidents as heroes without questioning the complicated nature of the Presidency's legacy (e.g., Dodge & Crutcher, 2015; Tschida et al., 2014). There are also no opportunities for students to engage in dialogue about the gendered nature of history, or about gender non‐normativity (Quast, 2018) or make sense of the gendered knowledge, histories, and structures of the past. Therefore, it is important for the curricula to include counter‐narratives about how minoritized individuals were treated by male Presidents.…”

Gender Themes in Czech Books for Children of Younger School Age

“…This transformative activity has not escaped traditional and widely known fairy tales (Meland, 2020;Pawłowska, 2021). The apparent effort of such books is to overcome gender stereotypes, critique sex and gender essentialism and the whole binary opposition in children's literature, and conversely, there is a strong effort to promote themes of sexual and gender diversity in the gender socialization of school children (DePalma, 2016;Quast, 2019;Varga-Dobai, 2013).…”